Media & Public Relations

Binghamton University’s teacher preparation program accredited

2005-06-09

Binghamton University’s Division of Education has become the first in the SUNY System to receive accreditation from the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC), one of three national accrediting agencies for teacher preparation programs.

The TEAC Accreditation Committee recently notified Ernest Rose, dean of the School of Education and Human Development, that the “teacher education program at the State University of New York at Binghamton is granted Initial Accreditation status.”

“It’s a validation of the excellence of our teacher education programs,” said Rose. “More and more, students will be looking to make sure that the institutions they enroll in are nationally accredited, because that means something on their resume -- that they’ve come from a program that has a national reputation for quality,” he said.

According to Robert Carpenter, director of the Division of Education, the TEAC accreditation committee unanimously approved the accreditation for five years. “This is complete accreditation for the longest possible period of time,” he said. “This is the best case scenario we could have hoped for.”

Carpenter credited the faculty for making the process go smoothly. “We made our claims and went about proving them to the accrediting agency’s satisfaction,” he said. “It’s really very gratifying. We have 15 different programs in teacher preparation and all 15 of them were successfully defended and accredited.”

The accrediting process was extensive. “Administrators from local schools and teachers from the community were interviewed, there were site visits where accreditors attended classes on campus and alumni were surveyed,” Carpenter said.